While Keir Starmer introduced his fresh agreement on managing small boats, I witnessed in disbelief, alongside Nigel Farage, as the French transferred 78 migrants to the UK Border Force in the middle of the Channel.

The French even demanded their life jackets back for the next batch of illegal migrants heading to Britain.

A state-facilitated crime was unfolding before my very eyes.

Nothing prepared me for this spectacle in the heart of the English Channel.

We set off from Dover on a small fishing boat with Nigel around 5am. 

Overhead we could hear the buzz of a drone used to monitor the dangerous small boat crossings. 

Soon we spotted a French Navy ship on the horizon chaperoning a migrant dinghy towards international waters.

Using binoculars we could see it was packed with men, feet hanging over the side dragging in the water. 

Reports came in that there was one woman and three children aboard.

Behind us a UK Border Force boat emblazoned with the Union Jack raced to the edge of British waters to wait for the French to bring the boat to them.

The precarious migrant dinghy was soon bobbing within around 250 metres in front of us. French on one side, Brits on the other.

What we saw next undermined any claims of “stopping the boats”.

Suddenly a French rib boat sped over to the dinghy. 

We worried that the migrants were in trouble.

Shockingly it transpired that the French were asking for 40 life jackets back which had been lent to the migrants earlier in the journey. 

They wanted the equipment back before the migrants crossed into UK waters.

Our crew, listening in on their radio, said they had never seen anything like it before.

Usually the French ask for their life jackets back after the migrants have been brought to Dover.

Clearly they were expecting hundreds more to attempt to get to Britain in the warm weather and low winds.

After this, two British rib boats were sent out to help the migrants towards the much larger UK Border Force boat.

As they tried to get off the boat we could hear the migrants shouting up to the crew.

Even after the scramble was over there was still more work to do. 

A British boat had been sent to collect the empty rubber dinghy. 

The handover of migrants in the English Channel was both seamless and shameful.

In around 15 minutes it was all over.

At one point our crew was warned by the French Navy to back off. No-one wants the public to see this. 

It is one of the reasons why the boats are picked up in the middle of the Channel instead of allowing them to land on beaches. 

What I saw on Thursday was less stop the boats and more carry on migrating.